The work has just been published and will be presented at the Guyana International Book Festival which starts on November 28. In a long interview, author Joël Roy lets Francky Amete tell his story. Beyond the discovery of a Tembé artist, the work shows the vision and reflections of a man on his Businenge culture. Meeting with Joël Roy.
How was this project born?
Francky Amete was looking for someone to write his story. Little by little we both talked. I wasn’t interested in writing a biography as is. I then suggested that we have informal conversations, sometimes about his life, sometimes about other social problems. I have never written a biography. It was a challenge and all challenges challenge me. After a while I said to myself “what have you gotten yourself into?” » But the stakes were high both for him and for me. With regard to him, I could not fail. Regarding myself, I did not want to produce mediocre writing.
What interested you about Francky Amete?
What is interesting about him is that he is resolutely contemporary, while maintaining an awareness of his history and traditions. He remains very attached to the land, to his parents, to his village, to the river. He has enormous devotion to his parents. All entirely respectable qualities which do not prevent him from fitting into the modern world. I have known him for a long time: like everyone in Guyana, I had already seen him on TV. I found that he conveyed a message that seemed very healthy to me with, as I said, an anchor in modern life and tradition.
How did you carry out this work?
It was months and months of recorded conversations. We worked for eight to ten months, sometimes at his place, sometimes at mine, most often in his workshop. Sometimes he stopped working, sometimes he continued. Each time, I arrived with a series of questions on a theme. Gradually I got to know him better and I didn’t hesitate to push him to his limits so that we didn’t just stay on the surface.
Francky is very attached to transmission and deplores that it is often misguided or even absent
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Beyond the biographical aspect, your book teaches us a lot about the businenge culture and in particular the tembe…
Francky is very attached to transmission and deplores the fact that it is often misguided or even absent. I think this book will be of interest for his personality or for his artistic production. There is also a concept that is important: today, we consider tembe as an art. It has, in fact, become an artistic practice today but it is not an art in itself. As Francky Amete explains, at the beginning, the tembe was a means for brown negroes (slaves who fled homes, Editor’s note), to pass messages that cannot be decoded by home owners. Then tembe came into practice as they became more settled. The tembe then entered homes for the decoration of everyday objects that were offered, for example, to the wife we coveted. For women, it also made it possible to pass messages that were unspeakable, particularly in romantic relationships. Tembe then, over time, became an artistic practice.
As you read the pages, you don’t feel like you’re reading an interview, but rather like learning as much about you as you do about him…
These are conversations, that’s how I wanted it. I think this is what makes the book more alive.
Le Tembe, culture and transmission, Francky Amete tells his story, by Joël Roy published by Mahury
Book signings during the Guyana International Book Festival, Saturday November 30, at Zéphyr
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